Film buffs included in festival

By
MARY MACHEN

JUNE is here and St Helens is in festival mode, with the Bay Of Fires winter festival expanding to include film screenings.

JUNE is here and St Helens is in festival mode, with the Bay Of Fires winter festival expanding to include film screenings.

In a push to build visitor numbers to the North-East Coast over the long weekend, the Bay of Fires festival is a mix of music, arts and gourmet food, but this year it will also join forces with Launceston's Breath of Fresh Air film festival to offer special movie screenings.

BOFA's co-operative interest had its genesis earlier this year when a ``consartium'' of successful Tasmanian festivals and events negotiated to work together to share costs and build audiences.

The consortium has called itself Festivals, Events, Arts Tasmania and its interests spread statewide.

The Bay of Fires festival will be BOFA's first co-operative venture, and directors Owen and Helen Tilbury have created a mini film festival for the event.

BOFA will provide an opening night film at Portland Hall, St Helens, on Friday, June 6, then four screenings over the weekend at White Sands resort.

The Friday 7pm screening will be Dexter Fletcher's moving adaptation of the hit stage musical Sunshine On Leith , featuring the rousing music of The Proclaimers, ending with a flash mob performance of their smash hit I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) in Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens.

Sunshine On Leith will screen again on Saturday, June 7, at 2.30pm at White Sands, followed by the hit movie of BOFA 2013, Mystery Road , with Aaron Pedersen at 7pm.

There will be two film screenings at White Sands on Sunday - The British comedy The Trip to Italy , featuring Rob Bryden and Steve Coogan, will screen at 2.30pm.

The surfing film Encoded - the Movie , which follows the world's best surfers on a trip to Tahiti's infamous Teahupoo on a quest for the world's most dangerous wave will screen at 7pm.

The Bay of Fires Festival, which also includes an art market at St Helens on Sunday, June 8, has developed around the growing interest in the $20,000 Bay of Fires Art Prize.

The winner of the Bay of Fires Art Prize will be announced on Saturday, June 7, at Tidal Waters, St Helens.